


before bells of the other chime

by crumbsfiction



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-08
Updated: 2014-05-08
Packaged: 2018-01-24 01:09:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1586120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crumbsfiction/pseuds/crumbsfiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(He mostly sticks to the old stuff, himself. Closes his eyes and pretends.)</p><p>On bad jokes and, maybe, getting better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	before bells of the other chime

**Author's Note:**

> this won't be touching much on bucky's recovery. i don't really feel qualified to write about that. this is more about what comes after.

It takes everything they’ve got.

”He needs therapy,” Natasha says when they bring him in, “therapy to drown the Russian federation in,” and Steve nods.

He doesn’t know much about psychiatry himself, the mentality in the war going along the lines of ‘man up, push it down’. If someone woke up screaming, no one was going to make a big deal of it, and he was always grateful for that. 

But Bucky needs help.

He writes down arguments to take to Fury on Tuesday, _he’s an asset he’ll be on our side he’s useful,_ but they all make him sick. He tears the page from the spine of his notebook and crumples it up in his hand.

“Can you talk him into it?” he asks Natasha on Wednesday and she nods.

“Give me an hour.”

On Thursday, the not-SHIELD tower is brimming with what Fury ensures him is the most competent specialists in the country. From the sidelines, Tony makes a vague remark about feeling undereducated and how he doesn’t like it.

“I’m gonna go get myself another PhD” _,_ he says and slinks away.

It takes everything they’ve got and Steve can’t pretend to understand half the procedure they put his best friend though. It’s so intensely clear, however, that in the end, it works.

   

Steve talks to him while he’s recovering.

He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to tell him stories from their childhood, if Bucky’s supposed to learn how to remember it all on his own. So instead, he tells him about his recent adventures with the Avengers, about technology and space and sushi and everything else he’s still having a hard time wrapping his head around.

Bucky doesn’t say much, just looks at him with eyes that are not chilly and blank like they were when he was still the Winter Soldier, but contemplating. Like he’s trying to fit the pieces into the new worldview he’s slowly building up again inside his own head.

One day, Steve brings a vintage magazine, dated to October 1940. He reads parts of it out loud while Bucky gazes out the window and down at the busy streets below, fingers curling into the blankets on his lap. When Steve gets to the humour column of the week, he can’t help the giggle-snort that escapes him and he recites the joke with a voice that shakes from barely contained laughter. 

“So the diner says,” Steve reads with a grin, “’do you serve crabs here?’”

He pauses for theatrical effect.

Bucky’s eyes are fixed on him now. Steve’s are fixed on the magazine. 

“And the waiter says,” Steve continues, “‘we serve anyone; sit down’.” He huffs another laugh and forces himself to look at Bucky, who’s still staring at him. Steve gives him his most sincere smile and cocks an eyebrow, _what did you think?_

Bucky blows a raspberry and gives him a thumbs-down.

  

None of the others refer to him directly as ‘Bucky’.

Most of the Avengers call him Barnes. The not-SHIELD officials call him Sergeant Barnes. Tony makes a new nickname up every day, usually something rude or inappropriate referencing his metal arm. It makes Steve scowl but Bucky doesn’t seem to mind. 

Natasha lets _James_ roll gently from her tongue with ill-hidden fondness. Steve is going to ask her about that, one day.

  

Bucky likes Pulp Fiction and AC/DC.

They’re still in the process of getting Steve caught up to date with movies they all claim are iconic. Steve thinks they’re pretty much identical, a complicated love story wedged between over the top explosions, but he sits them through nonetheless. 

The Avengers have reached the nineties, finally, and according to Clint, it’s Tarantino night. Whatever that means.

Bucky sits between Steve and Bruce, eyes focused on the gigantic Stark-labelled plasma screen.

“Popcorn’s the same,” he whispers and Steve smiles.

“Yeah, it is. There’s more flavours now though, like caramel and chilli and rainbow.”

Bucky frowns. “What’s rainbow taste like?” he asks and Steve shrugs.

“No idea, pal. Looks like poison to me.”

Steve doesn’t catch much of the plot, but snorts when Natasha dubs one of the characters ‘Nick Fury with hair’. When the credits roll, Clint and Tony ask Steve what he thought, like they always do, but this time Bucky is included.

He tells them he likes it.

“Black haired lady was something else,” he says and Tony raises his drink in agreement.

“Here, here,” he says. 

The AC/DC has, surprisingly, nothing to do with Tony.

Sam drops by the tower at least twice a week. He still spends most of his time in DC, but he’s co-leader of another support group in New York and goes back and forth between cities like a pendulum. 

He makes Bucky go for a run with him one morning, ending in what appears to be the same results as he gets from running with Steve. Sam doesn’t want to talk about it, he says, but Bucky seemed to be enjoying himself.

“Have you tried running with headphones yet, buddy?” Sam asks and Steve appreciates the use of familiar, embracing terms in which he’s speaking.

“No,” Bucky shrugs, “I haven’t looked into it.”

“Uh huh,” Sam says. “Maybe you should.”

Two days later, there’s a tiny back music player with white chords balancing on the armrest of Bucky’s favourite chair. Later inspection finds it filled with a mix of old jazz music and more recent songs Steve recognizes from Sam’s endless lists of recommendations.

(He mostly sticks to the old stuff, himself. Closes his eyes and pretends.)

Bucky doesn’t say much about the device initially but the next time Sam swings by he makes sure to thank him personally.

“Finally won’t have to listen to Steve’s yapping all day,” he says with a half-grin. Sam laughs, his whole body arching into the motion, and clasps Bucky’s flesh and blood shoulder.

“Ain’t no thing,” he says, “but I’m glad you like it.”

   

Someone has torn out a piece of the old magazine Steve read to Bucky from in the hospital. Not a whole page, just a small square from the humour column, big enough to contain one (1) weekly pun.

He finds the scrap of thin paper on the coffee table.

The joke goes like this:

‘Didn’t I meet you in New York?’

‘No, I was never in New York.’ 

‘Neither was I. It must have been two other fellows.’ 

Steve thinks that in 1940, he might have laughed.

  

On their days off, they go for walks. 

Fury has made it extremely clear that the goal is to incorporate Bucky, if not into the Avengers, then at least into not-SHIELD. _We could use a man of your abilities_ , he’d said after Bucky shot another round of 10/10 hits on the moving targets section of the range, in a voice that made it very clear that the matter wasn’t up for discussion.

Steve had hated it.

“I don’t want you to feel like you don’t have a choice,” he’d said afterwards, but Bucky just shrugged.

“I really don’t,” he’d said, “have a choice, I mean. A brainwashed ex-HYDRA soldier with convenient amnesia issues and a good eye for sharpshooting stumbling around New York by himself? Doesn’t work, anyone can see that."

It hurt, hearing it like that.

“Still,” Steve had said vaguely.

“No still.” A breath. “Even if there was. If there was anywhere else for me to go, somewhere to run… I’d stay. I think I’d stay.”

But there’s no time limit, nothing pushing what Psych is still calling recovery, no deadlines.

For now, they walk.

“It’s different,” Bucky says as soon as they’ve crossed Brooklyn Bridge. “The air is different.”

“Cleaner?” Steve asks.

“Not really. Just. Different.”

There’s nothing to say to that, so Steve hums as they walk. Bucky points out landmarks on their way, tiny anecdotes and flashes of memory that shouldn’t make his heart swell but still do because he’s here, his best friend is here and he _remembers._

Most of the buildings are the same. Red bricks and brownstone and even now, seventy years later, it feels like home. He wonders if Bucky feels the same.

“That’s where you got beat up when you tried to pry that meat sack of that girl in that bar,” Bucky says, pointing, and Steve snorts.

“You’ll have to be more specific. There’s probably at least ten more alleys where the exact same thing happened in our day. 

“April,” Bucky says. “Nineteen… thirty-four?”

“Yeah.”

They’re rounding the corner of another block when Bucky tugs on his sleeve. “Hey,” he says, “Is our old apartment still around?”

It was the first thing Steve had checked for when he woke up, got on the train and headed for the narrow, dirty street with the loose cobblestones that sometimes went through first or second story windows late on rowdy Saturday nights.

He scuffs his feet on the pavement.

“Nah. It’s a mall now,” he says, eyes on the ground.

“Oh,” Bucky says.

“I’m sorry,” Steve says and Bucky gives him that quizzical look, the one he always used when he’d understood what Steve meant but wanted to ask for clarification anyway, just to hear the words out loud.

“I mean. It’s different. I’m different. I’m sorry.”

Bucky barks a laugh at that, short and abrupt, and shoves his hands into the front pockets of his hoodie.

“Steve. Look at me, you ridiculous excuse of a super soldier, “ he says, so Steve does. “You were on ice too, pal. It’s not like you tore down the building yourself, built a goddamn mall, right? Did you do that?”

“No, of course not-“

“Then why in God’s name are you apologizing?”

“I don’t know.”

Bucky snorts. “Don’t worry, kiddo. You haven’t changed at all.”

 

 “I want Barnes on your next mission,” Fury says, two weeks later.

“But-“ Steve starts, then quickly realizes he’s got nothing to add to the one word.

“Are you sure he’s recovered enough?” Natasha asks on the other side of the table. Steve could kiss her.

“According to the Psych department’s reports, he’s good to go,” Fury says, pacing the length of the conference room. “And according to our Physical Evaluation Department-“

“You mean Clint,” Tony interrupts, propping his sneakers up on the table.

Fury gives him a one-eyed glare.

“According to Clint, his shootings are as good as ever.”

“He’s got a uniform? Weapons?” Natasha asks.

“Not a problem.”

 

“Alright, gents and Nat, “ Steve says, four days and eight hours later, wiping the sweat from his brow. “Good work. Time for clean-up." 

The street is a mangled mess of buckled metal and smashed concrete and Steve looks down on it in resignation. It’ll take a while to fix.

Tony groans over the intercom. “I don’t have time for-“

“Suck it up, Stark,” Bucky says, taking them all with surprise, “You did the least work out there. Should clean the street yourself.”

Natasha snorts.

“Speaking of which, Bob Swagger, didn’t expect you to be that good.” It’s high praise, coming from Tony. 

“You can shower me in compliments later,” Bucky says and Steve can almost hear his mischievous grin over the com. “Put your sorry excuses of metal limbs to work.”

“ _You_ put your sorry excuses of metal limbs to work,” Tony retorts and Clint sighs deeply.

“Losing battle, Tony, abandon ship.”

Tony huffs and mumbles something to JARVIS. The banging of metal is soon drowned out by what Steve recognizes as Black Sabbath. No one has the energy to complain.

  

“You did really great,” Steve says. 

They’re back in Brooklyn, two days later.

“It worked out, didn’t it?” Bucky says, kicking a pebble and sending it flying across the sidewalk.

They talk surprisingly little about the past. Sometimes one of them will say something along the lines of _hey remember when-_ but there’s no romanticization in it.

The Depression was hell, and they both know it. The war was hell, and they both know it.

It’s strange, being nostalgic about something that was, in its foundation, pretty bad.

Doesn’t help, though, knowing it.

“Noticed you’re getting along with Natasha,” Steve says, absentmindedly, because he still hasn’t asked about the familiarity in _James_ and he’s scared that he’ll get a heeled shoe embedded into his skull for his efforts. There are conversations, sometimes, in hushed and soft flowing Russian when the rest are asleep, but Steve doesn’t speak Russian. He just wants to understand.

“There’s history,” Bucky says. “I’ll tell you sometime.”

“The Red Room?” Steve asks and internally kicks himself when Bucky’s shoulders draw upward, tensing. “Sorry,” he adds.

“Yeah, no. It’s fine. It just takes time. It takes so much time and it’s frustrating as hell.”

Steve nudges his side with an elbow.

“You can take time. It’s alright,” he says and Bucky glances up at him (and it’s still strange, it should be the other way around) and smiles that lopsided smile of his.

“Yeah?”

“As much time as you want.”

They get popsicles at a stand with a sign that says OLD-FASHIONED in bold, blocky letters. It makes Bucky laugh. He complains about getting melted and sticky ice cream in the chinks of his metal hand all the way back across the Brooklyn Bridge. It makes Steve laugh.

  

The second call comes a week later and it takes less then five minutes before they’re all in uniform, lining up for formation. 

The battle goes awry. It’s a long story.

When Steve wakes up in the infirmary, Bucky’s feet are propped up against the side of his bed, bare toes wiggling back and forth.

“Morning, sunshine,” he says, but all Steve can manage in return in a low groan of pain. “How you feelin’?”

“Ugh,” says Captain America and Bucky snorts.

“Nurses say you’ll be fine,” he says. “Give it a day or two. Want water?”

Steve shakes his head, slowly. “What about the bots?” he manages instead.

“All taken care of. Tasha’s got a mean kick.”

Steve tries to imagine what this situation would be like, were he still in the point if time he should. Bucky would berate him for getting into a fight he couldn’t finish, for sure. Rub the blood off his face with an old handkerchief and throw his arm around Steve’s then-narrow shoulder, tell a bad joke to take his mind off the fact that he’d never be strong, or strong _enough_.

 _He won’t be the same,_ Psych had told him months ago and he’d almost rolled his eyes. Neither of them were. The minute Bucky got shipped out to war in 1943, the fact that they wouldn’t be the same poor Brooklyn kids was set in stone. Serums and HYDRA be damned. 

“You want to hear a joke?” Bucky asks, paging through a familiar magazine resting on his lap. 

“Sure, Buck.”

“’Sir,’ said a lady to a would-be wag, ‘your jokes always put me in a mind of a ball,’” reads Bucky. “‘Of a ball, madam; why so, pray?’ ‘Because they never have any point.’” 

Bucky grins and flips the magazine shut, dumps it on the floor by his chair. 

Steve snorts. “Terrible,” he says.

He thinks of what this situation would be like where he still in the right time and shakes his head. “Two different fellows, indeed,” he mumbles. 

Bucky cocks an eyebrow.

“Still New York, though,” he says and Steve smiles. 

“Two different fellows in New York.” 

“Sounds about right.”

Downstairs, someone is playing jazz.

Steve closes his eyes but doesn’t pretend.

**Author's Note:**

> all the bad jokes are from [this wonderful tumblr](http://someoldjokes.tumblr.com/)
> 
> and the title is from glue me by los campesinos! god i love them.


End file.
